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A Bangalore company has reconditioned some locomotives and has been conducting trial run on a 500-metre track that has been restored in Madinah.


Trial runs are underway on the Hijaz Railway that connects Madinah with Jordan, and destinations further afield in Syria and Turkey. A Bangalore company has reconditioned some locomotives and a few carriages and has been conducting trial run on a 500-metre track that has been restored in Madinah. The project by the Supreme Commission for Tourism envisages restoring the nearly 700-kilometre length of the Hijaz Railway falling within Saudi territory which connects Madinah with Tabuk on the northern borders with Jordan.


According to Aejaz Ahmed, managing director of the Bangalore based, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Locomotive Engineering Contractors, which has been given the contract for restoration, building of the Madinah Railway Station has been fully restored and renovated. Work on restoring the railway track is continuing and signaling has been reconditioned on the entire length. The firm specializes in railway track laying, civil contracts for railway related buildings and reconditioning of the locomotives in the Middle East and African countries.


Mr. Ahmed told Islamic Voice that, currently the project conceives restoring the Hijaz Railway for running heritage trains rather than for ferrying passengers or carrying goods.


Therefore it has been taken up by the Saudi Tourism rather than the Saudi Ministry for Railways which maintains a 500-km railway line in the Eastern region. However, its economic uses such as ferrying pilgrims from countries like Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria and even for transport of goods is not being ruled out.


The Hijaz Railway built by the Ottoman Turks between 1902 and 1906, is a single track cape gauge railway line. Cape gauge has a width of 106.7 cm (about six centimeters more than the metre gauge line) and was designed by Germans principally to cater to the military needs. It was operational till 1914 around the onset of First World War and was destroyed by the forces led by British general T. E. Lawrence, referred generally as ‘Lawrence of Arabia, in order to check the reinforcements by Turks.


The SMH Engg. Contractors has also reconditioned six carriages which were rusting along the tracks, stations and in marshalling yards of the Hijaz Railway. The carriages include a couple of old German made passenger coaches, a water tanker, an animal float and a goods wagon. The original Ottoman trains used to carry a mobile passport office and wagons for arms and ammunition too. The mobile passport van was needed to register the foreign pilgrims on board. The Turk-built stations of Tabuk and Al-Ula are also under various stages of restoration. The Hijaz Railway had altogether 37 stations between Madinah and Turkey.


The Madinah railway station, located about a kilometer from the Prophet’s (Pbuh) Mosque, is a sprawling building measuring 600 metres by 200 meters with three platforms. It has been restored on original plan. However, certain portions have been wholly rebuilt. An old mosque with Ottoman architecture has also been renovated. An Egyptian company provided the designing and consultancy for the civil works.


Mr. Ahmed said the Ottoman-run Hijaz Railway had just one pair of train running on a daily basis and had only 14 locomotives. Of these, the railway yard in Madinah has hulks of five locomotives, while four are in Al-Ula and two in Tabuk. He informed that the Saudi Tourism insists on running steam locomotives in order to retain its heritage value. He said since steam locomotives have been phased out of railways all over the world, his firm was not able to procure any new engines for the Railway.


(The writer can be reached at maqbool_siraj@rediffmail.com)

An electronic encyclopedia for the holy Quran, including the art of recitation in different styles, was launched in Dubai recently. The encyclopedia (Iqra), described as the first of its kind, has been designed for people with special needs and others, who can listen to the recitation in 40 different languages through a touch-sensitive device. Spelling out the details of their latest product, Emad Al Deghaither, president, Othmani Calligraphy House, said it was a joint venture between his company and Intel Corp’s special projects division.


A unique feature of Iqra, he pointed out, was that it does not require any knowledge of computer operation. “It is a user-friendly device that can be operated by anyone, including a handicapped person, through electronic sensors for activating the device,” he said. Once he goes into the operational mode, the user can issue oral commands to the computer, which has a voice-recognition system in 40 languages. According to Al Deghaither, another advantage is that the user can access the Internet and exchange files with others in a hassle-free manner.


Light and portable, the device comes in the form of the Quran. Above all, it contains different types of recitation of the Quran with explanation, translation, the scheme of pronunciation, and textbook, with commentary related to the Quran to enable a person to understand it in its true perspective. Intel Corp, chairman, Craig Barrett expressed his admiration for Al Deghaither’s initiative, which he said would cater to the needs of the handicapped people and others in the Muslim world. Equipping the device with state-of-the-art technology makes it easy to use for a person, who can retrieve the text, picture and video files stores inside the system and transfer the file anywhere.


Al Deghaither said the launch of the project “was a dream come true”. “I worked on it for more than five years. It will help 1.5 billion Muslims around the world in learning the art of recitation of the Quran in their own language, retrieving any Quranic verse, understanding the historical background to the verse, and exchanging information over the Internet.